I wanted to share with you snippets I shared last year from my book The Anne Boleyn Collection II regarding what we know about Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth, as mother and daughter. Click here to read that article now.
Sadly, Elizabeth lost her mother in May 1536, but there were a number of women who had an influence on the young Elizabeth and Elizabeth once wrote of her governess Kat Ashley: “We are more bound to them that bringeth us up well, than to our parents, for our parents do that which is natural for them, that is bringeth us into the world, but our bringers up are a cause to make us live well in it.” Other women who influenced Elizabeth include:
- Lady Margaret Bryan, Elizabeth’s governess until 1537.
- Catherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth wife.
- Catherine Carey, daughter of Mary Boleyn, and Elizabeth’s cousin and Chief Lady of the Bedchamber.
- Blanche Parry, Elizabeth’s former childhood nurse and Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber.
- Blanche Herbert, Lady Troy, who is thought to have replaced Lady Bryan in 1537.
You can read more about these people, and other members of the young Elizabeth’s household in my article The Household of Elizabeth Tudor.
On this day in history…
- 1532 – William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, criticised Henry VIII in the House of Lords when Parliament was discussing the annulment. The King responded with what historian G. W. Bernard describes as “foul language”.
- 1551 – Lady Mary, sister of Edward VI, and the future Mary I, rode through London causing a stir. It was recorded that Mary and her accompanying gentlemen and ladies were all carrying rosaries “to make an open profession, no doubt, of their devotion for the mass.”
